


Dreaming?

by My_Beating_Hart



Series: A Mahariel's Travels [50]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Gen, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Beating_Hart/pseuds/My_Beating_Hart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When we came out here, I didn't think you'd actually fall asleep." The blond elf commented.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming?

"Come on, _lethallin_ , wake up."

Theron opened his eyes to sunlight streaming down through the canopy of a tree, casting dappled shadows across the grass he was lying on. A soft laugh to his right drew his gaze.

"Tamlen?" He breathed, eyes wide as he took in the sight of his fellow hunter lying next to him and smiling gently.

"When we came out here, I didn't think you'd actually fall asleep." The blond elf commented.

Theron couldn't stop staring. Tamlen was here? Was this a dream? It had to be a dream. But everything seemed so real. The ground against his back, the heat of the sun and cooler shade on his cheeks, the gentle breeze...

"I... What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you to wake up, of course. But I suppose I could have gone back to camp instead, and left you here." Tamlen answered, smiling playfully at his fellow hunter.

"I thought you were dead?"

The blond elf raised one eyebrow, and looked down at himself.

"I don't feel dead. I feel as healthy as ever. Maybe you dreamed it?"

Theron frowned in confusion. But... He could remember it, as clear as the day. Tamlen had touched that mirror and disappeared. They'd held a funeral over an empty grave.

"But there was the ruin, with the walking corpses and a bear monster..."

Tamlen frowned back at him.

"Now _that_ sounds like a dream, _lethallin_."

The black-haired elf sighed, shaking his head to himself. How could it have been a dream? What had happened afterwards, with Duncan Conscripting him, the loss of Ostagar, everything since then… Had it all been some kind of dream?

“Tamlen, what colour are my eyes?” Theron asked suddenly, looking back at Tamlen.

The blond looked faintly concerned for a second.

“Brown, as always. _Lethallin_ , are you alright?” He questioned slowly, and Theron found it difficult to answer for a few minutes.

“I think so.” He replied uncertainly, staring up at the green canopy overhead. “Where are we, anyway?” He asked, looking around at the forest beyond the tree they lay under.

“Only a few miles from camp, but we’ve been here all day. And you had the nerve to fall asleep mid-conversation.”

“Are we still in the Brecilian?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t we be?”

“I thought the clan was moving north?”

Tamlen frowned in thought.

“If that is the Keeper’s plan, she hasn’t told the rest of us. I don’t see why we should move, though.”

Theron blinked at his fellow hunter.

“But what about the darkspawn?”

Tamlen snorted in amusement.

“You’ve been listening to too many of old Paivel’s tales again. There are only darkspawn when there’s a Blight.”

Theron closed his eyes against the sun, taking a deep breath and thinking. Had he really dreamed everything? Leaving the forest to fight an Archdemon? Then again, it sounded so absurd that it could only be a dream. He was a Dalish hunter, how could anyone expect him to do something as important as that? But, even as he lay here in peace with Tamlen, something that he couldn’t place still felt wrong.

“Maybe I have.” The black-haired elf nodded uncertainly, reaching up to rub at his eyes with one hand. “But it all felt so real.”

“It was only a dream, _lethallin_.” Tamlen sighed, pushing himself up into a sitting position and brushing a leaf from one armoured shoulder. “But it sounds interesting.” He added as he stretched his arms above his head.

“I dreamed that you died, I’m not sure how interesting that will be to hear.” Theron muttered, staring up at the tree above them.

“Did I go down in glory fighting a bear or a wolf pack?” The blond asked with a grin, stretching lazily in the dappled sunlight that threw patches of his freckles into the light.

“Not quite. Can we talk about something else, _lethallin_?” Theron asked, unease rolling in his stomach as he tried not to think about what had happened in that ruin. Dream or not, it was still upsetting.

“Of course.” Tamlen nodded. “We could walk back to camp, or go exploring now you’ve had a nap?” He suggested, and Theron smiled reluctantly at last in response to the tease. The blond’s next words took him by surprise.

“I love it when you smile.”

For a moment, Theron was certain he’d misheard, and he blinked mutely at the blond sitting next to him.

“What?” He eventually asked, when he remembered he possessed a tongue.

“You don’t smile enough, and you have such a nice smile.” The blond continued with a casual shrug, and Theron felt oddly cold despite the daytime warmth. Tamlen looked at him, and smiled again. “You look like a startled halla. Maybe I need to compliment you more often?”

Theron stared up at his fellow hunter, confused all over again, but with a tentative flutter of hope somewhere between his stomach and chest.

“Tamlen, are we…?”

“Are we what? Enjoying a beautiful day in each other’s company?”

The black-haired elf swallowed, and carefully sat up as well.

“You know what I mean.”

The blond elf seemed to realise that the time for jokes and teasing had passed, because his easy smile faded.

“Yes. How long were you in that dream for?”

Theron felt his chest tighten as the hope swelled, and his breath caught in his throat. He and Tamlen were _together_?

“Too long. Does the clan know?” He responded, drawing one knee up to his chest. What if the others disapproved?

“They always have. You worry too much about what they might think sometimes, _lethallin_.”

Theron ran a hand through his hair, going quiet as he processed everything. They were in a relationship, and not one that needed to be hidden from friends and family. He’d heard about how some _shemlen_ , and even some clans, killed people for daring to not be hidden and secretive in their preferred relationships. It was more than he’d ever dared hope. It was astonishing, and another thing that seemed unreal. Again, as he looked at Tamlen, he could still feel that faint pull of _something_ wrong. But this was perfect. Perhaps too perfect.

“How do I know I’m not dreaming still? Or that this is the dream and what I thought was the dream is reality?” He asked, and Tamlen smiled fondly at him again, the sunlight playing over his ash-blond hair and the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose, a sight that fed the warmth in his chest as much as the bright and beautiful laughter did. Things to be cherished.

“Theron, it’s just a dream. Stop worrying about it.” Tamlen grinned widely, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “I could pinch you, if you want? Show you that you're not still dreaming?” He added, the grin turning sly for a moment. “Or, something better than a pinch.”

Theron barely had time to react before Tamlen leant over and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, soft, warm and sweet under the sun. Again, it felt like something was missing, but Theron was at a loss to figure out what. He moved closer to his fellow hunter, his _lath_ , instead, in the hopes of either finding out what or ignoring it in favour of the kiss.

Tamlen’s hands remained by his sides; they didn’t move to rest on the other elf’s shoulders, one didn’t tangle itself in his braids or cup the back of his head. Was _that_ what was missing?

Theron pulled out of the kiss first, confused yet again. The feeling of something lacking persisted, frustratingly, and as a result was growing more difficult to ignore. Like a fly in an aravel, or the itch of an insect bite. What was most annoying was that he had no idea precisely what was missing, or how to discover what the missing thing was.

“What shall we do now?” Tamlen asked, drawing Theron from his thoughts. “We could go back to camp, or hunt something?” He suggested, nodding to where their bows and quivers were propped up against the tree trunk behind them, easily within reach.

The black-haired elf shrugged, taciturn as he worried at his thoughts like a wolf with a bone. Perhaps the focus hunting demanded would clear his mind entirely, even for only a few hours? Maybe he would even be able to push away the nagging insistence that something was wrong.

“Let’s hunt.” He said as he got to his feet and grabbed his weapons. Tamlen nodded, tilting his face up towards the sunlight and closing his eyes with a sigh, savouring the peace before he got onto his knees. Theron held out one hand for the other elf to take gratefully. It wasn’t until he felt Tamlen’s hand in his that a faint chill crept down his spine. This was familiar, but different somehow. _Right_ , but also _wrong_.

Tamlen’s palm was cooler than he’d expected, the calluses in the wrong place even though they were both proficient archers, his skin was too pale, and when their gazes met Tamlen’s eyes were blue rather than gold.

With a suddenness as if he’d just been shot with an arrow in the chest, Theron remembered Zevran.

“ _Lethallin_ , what’s wrong?” Tamlen frowned as he got to his feet. “You’ve gone pale.”

The black-haired elf tried to keep his breathing deep and even, cold all over with shock.

“You’re not you. You’re not Tamlen.” He answered, taking a step back as he stared at the other elf. “This is all a trick of the Beyond.” His chest twisted in pain as the clinging spiderwebs of the illusion were torn down from around his mind. Tamlen was dead, had been for months. They could never have had what he’d desired. The Beyond had given him the impossible that he’d craved for so long, and he’d willingly believed it. No, no, no, no. Tears stung in his eyes, and cleared his head.

Tamlen - or the illusion that took his form - had the grace to look hurt.

“But isn’t this what you’ve always wanted, Theron?” He asked, still in the same gentle voice taken straight from Theron’s fondest memories of his fellow hunter.

“Not like this. This isn’t real. A trap, a snare. I’m a halla in a spider’s web.” The Dalish elf shook his head, gripping tightly at his bow as he continued to back away. As he moved towards the surrounding trees, they shifted and changed, becoming distorted and broken imitations, like markings scratched into the dirt. The Beyond. _He was in the Beyond_.

Now he was free of the trick, Theron could remember everything, overwhelmingly quickly. The Blight and the treaties, the Circle tower, Wynne, the Sloth demon. He had to find the others, if they were somewhere in the Beyond with him. How could he get out of here?

“You’re so ungrateful.” The illusion huffed, still using Tamlen’s voice and face, and Theron continued to back away cautiously. “You could have been so happy and content here with Tamlen. You could have had the life you’ve _dreamed_ of. All you’re doing is denying yourself happiness. How disappointing.”

Theron closed his eyes against the unbearable ache in his chest, willing himself not to cry.

“That’s it. It would only have been a dream. An impossible dream.” He answered shakily, and when he opened his eyes the illusion of Tamlen was gone, replaced by a demon of desire amid the distorted landscape of the Beyond. The tree they had rested under was gone as if it had never been there. “I could never have had Tamlen. Zevran isn’t Tamlen, I know, but I love him too. He’s real, and I need to find him.”

The desire demon looked almost disappointed, but Theron kept himself alert for any signs of an attack. He’d seen one in the tower earlier that had enthralled a templar, but that had looked like a woman. This one looked like a man.

“I wonder if you will allow me to leave with no fuss or bloodshed, now you’ve worked your way back towards the Sloth demon’s domain?” It mused, and Theron shuddered as he listened to a startlingly close approximation of Zevran’s voice, with a darker tone underneath it that couldn’t have belonged to anything human.

“Will you attack me if I turn my back?” The ranger countered warily, and the desire demon tipped it’s head back and laughed. It was a rich and beautiful sound, one Theron immediately longed to hear more of and yet knew that he couldn't.

“It seems we are at a stalemate. Your lack of trust is wise, but now I can no longer fool you, I have no more interest in you. I have had my fun, mortal. Go if you wish, but if you want a fight you will find that I am a well endowed opponent.”

Theron nodded, but he kept his eye on the desire demon until it vanished, no doubt to find easier prey elsewhere in the Beyond. Then he kept walking as tears blurred his vision, nursing the wounds both new and reopened old as he set out alone to find the others and get back to the Circle.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, the age-old question of what Theron's dream in the Broken Circle would really be is answered.  
> Constructive criticism, whether on this piece or any others I've posted on here, is very much welcome!


End file.
